Tuesday, December 8, 2009

Once upon a time there was a German Shorthair Pointer named Ziggy. Ziggy was a one and a half year old dog but his family still called him a puppy. Ziggy was smart. Very smart. Ziggy was excitable. Very excitable. Ziggy's family bought him a collar that could be operated with a remote control to either "beep" him for a warning or "zap" him for a correction. The collar worked well...

when it had batteries in it that worked.

The problem was that Ziggy, being the smart dog he was, knew as soon as the batteries would wear out and his family could no longer correct him. He was a wonderful, sweet, well behaved, nearly perfect dog when his collar was working but as soon as the batteries wore out, (usually in less than two weeks per pair) Ziggy would go wild. His family didn't know how he knew, they didn't really care. The point was, he knew.

The collar required Lithium 2032 batteries. At times, these batteries were difficult to find. The grocery store that carried them always had an empty peg, the batteries were never in stock. The drug stores carried them and when they were in stock, they usually ran about $3.50 per pair. A small price to pay, in the family's opinion for a well-behaved dog.

One day, the Daddy of the family was shopping at his favorite store, Costco. The Daddy liked to go to Costco, something about the warehouse feeling and the variety of products, he just loved to shop there. One day he came home with an odd assortment of items, a "Snuggie," a mega-pack of English Muffins and a 28-pack of "flameless tea lights." The Snuggie was easy to understand, his wife was perpetually cold,

the English muffins were easy to understand too, they had 8 grams of fiber and only 100 calories, everyone in the family loved these, but 28 flameless tea lights? What did they need with these? The answer was simple. The batteries. These 28 flameless tea lights took the very elusive Lithium 2032 batteries and not only did each tea light come with a battery installed, they came with 28 additional batteries as well... for only $13.99! The family would have had to pay $98 for 56 batteries for Ziggy's collar before, when they could find them of course.

The Daddy was a hero! He knew there was a reason to continue shopping at Costco! The Momma was so excited that she sent him back the next day for another pack of tea lights and batteries and The Son in the family, he was just excited to be able to play with a flameless tea light, he thought it looked like the back of a rocket.

Ziggy? Well, Ziggy knew that his days of acting like a wild beast were over. He secretly hoped that the tea lights would be sold out when his Daddy went back to Costco but deep down inside he realized that probably wouldn't happen, he vowed that he would be a good boy, it wasn't like he had too many more options, his family had him over the proverbial battery barrel so to speak...

at least for now... he would let his people think they were getting their way, he could hold out for a LONG time. He went to sleep that night, legs pulsing with doggy dreams, tail twitching rapidly as he dreamed of capturing the most valuable prey of all, the Energizer Bunny.

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About Me

I'm a 41-year-old mom who teaches swim lessons at our local YMCA and who works as a nutritionist, helping others to lose weight. I recently lost 90 pounds myself and I've maintained it for a year. But I consider my most important job that of taking care of my sweet, 6-year-old boy, two furry canine sons and one fantastic husband to whom I've been married for sixteen years. We were "city people" for many years but we're now "country people" since we've moved from a small row home in a hip, urban neighborhood to a much smaller country town an hour outside of "our" city. Join me to read about our family's adventures, my love of fitness/running, crafts, decorating and healthy living and any other random nonsense I may decide to blog about...let the adventures begin...